[mturmon]

More on the JWST overrun:

http://www.spacenews.com/civil/101112-jwst-cost-imperils-pri...

[robryan]

Given the amount spent a launch failure would be pretty catastrophic for the JWST.

[mturmon]

A launch failure is always catastrophic for the onboard instrument ;-)

[d2]

Canceling the JWST will be a catastrophe for NASA.

[mturmon]

They're not proposing to cancel JWST.

It's just that its $6.5B price tag is overwhelming the whole astrophysics science effort. The original design was supposed to come in around 0.5B. See

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/71607/title/Star_...

[gammarator]

Unfortunately, with JWST sitting out there as its own line-item in the NASA budget (as opposed to rolled in with the rest of Astrophysics), there's concern in the community that it will be a tempting target for a Congress anxious to cut anything that moves.

[OstiaAntica]

To be fair to the cutters in Congress, running a government that borrows 40 cents of every dollar it spends is going to lead to a catastrophe.